[Got the Shakes]

A quick currency conversion after a google search shows that Gilles’ price for the A16 has increased from approximately 4636 USD to 5298 USD. I suppose one can look at it as a kind of silver lining to reduce the sting of having to wait for one’s Kickstarter or pre-order unit to ship, or for having had to incur the costs of the upgrade plus shipping.

I expect that the hardware upgrade will necessitate a firmware upgrade and so the pause in shipping must be attributed to (1)building/rebuilding A16s, done by perhaps even smaller cadres of workers during the pandemic, (2)rewriting firmware for the A16 Pro-A, and (3)having to test each new A16 Pro-A unit prior to shipping.

As an idle thought, I was wondering if Smyth Research had received all of the units(however many there were) for which financial commitments had been made for the upgrade. You’ll recall that we are now some 12 days out from the publicly stated “please ship by” date of April 24th.

12 days out from the “please ship by date” and 16 days away form James’ estimated “completed by” date.

 

[You Gene]

I don't think Pro-A is the name for an A16 with new boards, but it is the name for yet another version of the A16 with different analog inputs and outputs, aimed at professional users:

Gilles just answered :
..."It’s another device. But it also embeds the upgrade"...

And the info from my former post about the A8 clients split into private/professionals is not from Lorr Kramer but from CNET and reads :
...Smyth Research Realiser A8 sales are currently split 50-50 between music/film industry professionals and audiophiles..
https://www.cnet.com/news/smyth-realiser-a8-perfect-surround-sound-over-headphones/

 

[esimms86]

It sounds about right. But then we are all of us split into :
- kickstarters
- pre-orders
- recent orders at full price
and now we have a new type of clients, the professionals.

I seem to recall (interview with Lorr Kramer) unless mistaken, that the customer base for the A8 was aimed at professionals for 50% of all orders.

Are those professionals included as "kickstarters/pre-orders/new clients" or are they an aside proposition now that the beta phase is almost over and that the A16 has new boards as well ?

We never run out of questions with the Smyths...By the way, I just queried Gilles about the A16 Pro-A.

The old version of the A16 is still on sale on the French web site and mentions :
...Like its predecessor Realiser A8, the A16 can also be used via USB by sound professionals, to control and mix multichannel. From stereo up to 16 speakers, through headphones... with the following link
http://realisersonhomecinema.com/realiser-a8/

I would lump the professionals into the same group as the buyers who paid full price, as I expect that professional sound engineers will also being paying full price. Further, I anticipate that the real A16 market, after Kickstarter and pre-orders, will be the professionals, with a smattering of early adopter Headfi-type audiophiles. I additionally see the Pro market to provide Smyth Research’s greatest impetus to arrive at Auro 3D and DTS-X certification. Said certification, though of minor import to casual users and audio/videophiles, has greater meaning for Pros with contracts for movie soundtrack mixing.

Regarding the May 22nd date estimated for return shipping of upgraded A16s, I’ve always taken that estimate with a grain of salt and I, for one, would be happy to see my A16 arrive back in the mail by June 30th. Yes, May 22nd would also be great, however...

 

[Got the Shakes]

I would lump the professionals into the same group as the buyers who paid full price, as I expect that professional sound engineers will also being paying full price. Further, I anticipate that the real A16 market, after Kickstarter and pre-orders, will be the professionals, with a smattering of early adopter Headfi-type audiophiles. I additionally see the Pro market to provide Smyth Research’s greatest to arrive at Auro 3D and DTS-X certification. Said certification, though of minor import to casual users and audio/videophiles, has greater meaning for Pros with contracts for movie soundtrack mixing.

Regarding the May 22nd date estimated for return shipping of upgraded A16s, I’ve always taken that estimate with a grain of salt and I, for one, would be happy to see my A16 arrive back in the mail by June 30th. Yes, May 22nd would also be great, however...

Same here. They made it sound like it would take four weeks to retrofit our units and I figure we can probably plan on doubling that estimate.

 

[Eich1eeF]

Does anyone else think that the simple fact that it's the "A16 Pro-A" and not just plain "A16 Pro", that there might be a "A16 Pro-D" in the works? Also using DB25, but with AES/EBU signaling.

I expect that the hardware upgrade will necessitate a firmware upgrade

I don't think that going to be a lot to do on the software side. It's just a different analog output board that I expect would look almost exactly the same from the perspective of the microcontroller and audio routing. Aside from a different splash screen, in the worst case, they'll have to deal with a different volume contol IC, and that should be a trivial change. Otherwise it's just some different analog components after the DACs and a different board layout, both should be invisible to software.

 

[esimms86]

Does anyone else think that the simple fact that it's the "A16 Pro-A" and not just plain "A16 Pro", that there might be a "A16 Pro-D" in the works? Also using DB25, but with AES/EBU signaling.

I don't think that going to be a lot to do on the software side. It's just a different analog output board that I expect would look almost exactly the same from the perspective of the microcontroller and audio routing. Aside from a different splash screen, in the worst case, they'll have to deal with a different volume contol IC, and that should be a trivial change. Otherwise it's just some different analog components after the DACs and a different board layout, both should be invisible to software.

Assuming that they limit themselves to taking care of the bare minimum. I ask myself, what would I do if I had a list of bug fixes and requested improvements to address and I was an A16 programmer(i.e., the Smyth brothers, by dint of age in the Covid-19 high risk group), forced by the pandemic to work from home? Put another way, this could be viewed as an opportunity to work on software AND Auro 3D and DTS-X certification.

At the rate at which the A16(and the A8 before it) went from idea to launch, I wouldn’t invest any energy into thinking about the future appearance of different versions of the A16.

 

[Rozeqloud]

Actually Smyth Research introduced minor changes over the last last three years. One important change was announced recently as part of the update #59 at kickstarter page.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...al-3d-audio-headphone-processor/posts/2781725

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think that Smyth Research came to conclusion on a balanced output or full sized balanced for headphones.

Thanks mate

 

[You Gene]

Just some info posted by Gilles on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pg/smyth.realiser.fr/post

Smyth Realiser A8 & A16
Yesterday at 12:00 am
The Realiser A16 family is growing with a new member: the Realiser A16 Pro-A. Dedicated to professionals, it takes over all the functions of the Realiser A16 horizontal 2U but swaps the I / O outputs 16 channels on mini-jack for DB25 in symmetrical format. In post-production, the A16 Pro-A allows mixing and headphone mix verification anywhere, without monopolizing the large, previously captured auditorium. And with the same spatial fidelity, recognized by sound professionals, thanks to exclusive SVS technologies. The Realiser A16 Pro-A is available now at https://av-in.com/products/smyth-realiser-a16-pro-a

 

[You Gene]

I begin to feel less and less comfortable with the Smyths. Their mishaps and other seemingly unrelated occurrences keep accumulating year after year and always for a good reason. Was it also like this at the time of the A8 ?
Do they feel obligated to apologize or explain. No. Any normal human being would. You would. I would. They would not !
And yet we always give them the benefit of the doubt.
Am I being paranoid ? I wish I was.

And now I read on another forum : … I asked james smyth the question, we can go to the pro version for $ 490. I asked other questions but oddly he only answered that one ...

Sorry to be so pessimistic, it must be one of those days…

PS : the message was not deleted on HCFR, my mistake

 

[illram]

He is always very responsive when you ask about paying for something. Not trying to be cynical, that is just my experience.

 

[Got the Shakes]

He is always very responsive when you ask about paying for something. Not trying to be cynical, that is just my experience.

This. I always got quick answers when it involved me paying the difference to the retail price to get my unit faster or paying for the upgrade. The questions they’ll never answer involve anything with estimating a shipping date or that kind of stuff.

I will say they’ve been good at responding to questions and concerns about the import fees though.

 

[pecman32]

I find the sales policy of the Smyth brothers more than vicious. At no time do they communicate on the marketing plan, all of a sudden they bring us two new A16 while I just bought the A16, suddenly I felt injured and so I was "forced" to take the upgrade to 500 dollars to benefit from the latest technologies but this was obviously not enough since they released a PRO version: o with DB25 inputs and outputs, the balls! Should I go back to the cashier ?! : x

 

[J.Villain]

I'm in the industry and for the life of me I can't think of a single device that takes a DB25. The most likely use would be to go to a patch bay but those don't use DB25s.

And yup I am pissed that they have every thing else in the world to work on other that sending units to the people whos money they stole.

 

[1m1a]

I'm in the industry and for the life of me I can't think of a single device that takes a DB25. The most likely use would be to go to a patch bay but those don't use DB25s.

And yup I am pissed that they have every thing else in the world to work on other that sending units to the people whos money they stole.

Well I would guess their target market is people working working on Pro Tools doing surround mixes. The HD I/O and 192 interfaces use the DB25s.

I agree with you... I sure would like to get my A16 that had an estimated delivery of 2017.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Just some info posted by Gilles on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pg/smyth.realiser.fr/post

Smyth Realiser A8 & A16
Yesterday at 12:00 am
The Realiser A16 family is growing with a new member: the Realiser A16 Pro-A. Dedicated to professionals, it takes over all the functions of the Realiser A16 horizontal 2U but swaps the I / O outputs 16 channels on mini-jack for DB25 in symmetrical format. In post-production, the A16 Pro-A allows mixing and headphone mix verification anywhere, without monopolizing the large, previously captured auditorium. And with the same spatial fidelity, recognized by sound professionals, thanks to exclusive SVS technologies. The Realiser A16 Pro-A is available now at https://av-in.com/products/smyth-realiser-a16-pro-a

If it was regular XLR balanced I/O, I might be interested, but DB25--PASS! In terms of performance, functionality and usefulness, it's a non-event.

Insofar as it might affect the delivery of modded units, that could be a big deal. I sent mine back for repair at the end of January, and I'll be getting the modded version free of charge, but if it comes at the end of June, that's a five month turnaround. Considering the warranty is only for one year, does that mean I have five months shaved off it, when I only had the thing in house for two weeks, and couldn;t get it to work properly in the first place? What if I have another issue 8 months from june in, say, Feb 2021?